How I first got interested in small stuff

How I first got interested in small stuff.

After reading Michael Conolly’s “Chasing the Dime"” I took an interest in what all this Nanotechnology stuff was. I did my research and decided that if there was anyone else even remotely like me in this world, then a common sense blog that could explain the small stuff in a small way, and perhaps ask bigger questions was a must. I didn’t find one so I went ahead and made it. I hope it is of some help in breaking down the discourse of power that has inevitably arisen in this field. After all if you don’t know what a bucky ball is, and I still am not sure, then you are hardly likely to invest in one are you? Well are you?

One thing is for sure its definitely not anything with which you could propose a new game for the next Olympics in China. Not without a great big microscope anyway.

So what is Nanotechnology?

Bascially its an all encompassing word that deals with things smaller than the head of a pin. No even smaller than that, smaller than a period or a full stop. No, even smaller than that again. Let me see, if you imagine a human hair is 50,000 strands weaved together then a Nano meter is one of those strands. Nano technology is a term for any technology or area of research that involves itself with things that are this small. Lets get that into perspective. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that in future small flying machines that escape from Laboritories will be able to pass right through a human being without anyone ever knowing, including the owner of the machine. Lets face it, if you have something that small, how do you know when you loose it?

“Nanotechnology is the ability to control or manipulate matter on the atomic scale, making it possible to create structures, devices and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small size, approximately 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair. Carbon nanotubes are extremely efficient at the transfer of heat, and are especially useful because of their small size, light weight, and mechanical strength.” [PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Source: Ames Research Center]

Yes there seems to be some conflicting evidence on how small a nano really is. Not that would be called Nanos but lets just say they are.

Why? I hear you ask would anyone want to bother? Well for a start, and let me put a quote in here,

“The emerging fields of nanoscience and nanoengineering are leading to unprecedented understanding and control over the fundamental building blocks of all physical things. It is likely to change the way almost everything - from vaccines to computers to automobile tires to objects not yet imagined - is designed and made."

-Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology Report

Let me put it differently. Do you remember the end of the 1980’s? I mean really remember them? What did you do when you wanted to meet someone? Were you even aware of email? What the hell was text, ringtone, cell phone and mobile? How did any of us ever arrange to meet and do anything? In 1985 did you know windows were not for looking through but working with? A hard drive was 16 hours behind the wheel and no stopover. And an airbag was your uncle Walter telling you how it used to be in his day. Well sit up because here we are again. The same way the microchip has revolutionised the world, so too will the nano chip, when it finally gets made. This technology has the ability to be applied in every field if the will to apply it can be found. Given the smallest integrated circuit today is about 350 strands of the 50,000 that would make a human hair, (if one hair was made of 50,000 strands that is), the nanocomputer will be less than 100 nm. (nanometers is the term and I’d better start using it).

Almost all the pioneers of infotech business are into serious work on nanoelectronics.

In semiconductors, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are working on 65 nm chips and beyond. Intel promises commercially available products by 2005 and AMD by 2006.

The Nanoelectronics Research Initiative over the next 15 years will create devices with features less than 10 nanometers -- or billionths of a meter -- in size, roughly 10 times smaller than in current state-of-the-art chips.

This also means that in 30 years or so when your daughter brings home her new boyfriend he will tell you (you hope) that his father made his money in Nano. A whole new language, a way of thinking, and certainly a way of living will arise as soon as the scientists and industrialists really get their act together. Are you ready for it? I know I am not but I am damn sure I will be as soon as I get my head around it all.

I promise once I know you will be first after me. Well ok maybe not the first but within the week ok?